NOLA event delivers promise of community brand based on big ideas!

North Star Destination Strategies' client downtown New Orleans is totally turned on! (Link to the community brand.) Hundreds of the city’s entrepreneurs are still buzzing from their recent brain meld with business leaders, corporate volunteers and MBA students from places like Stanford and Cornell. All this cool collaborative thinking was part of NOLA’s Entrepreneurs' Week, which was organized by the Idea Village as part of the city’s ongoing efforts to ensure the success of its creative class. More and more Gen X and Gen Y superstars are turning to independent industries of the mind (read: creative entrepreneurs) as a way to make a living. And boring ol’ small business support just won’t cut the mustard. New Orleans is leading the way in establishing the city as a model for entrepreneurship across the nation.

USA Today Article, "Gen Y makes a mark and their imprint is entrepreneurship," points out that the emerging generation of workers has the smarts and the confidence to get a job, but that they have increasingly decided that corporate America does not fit their needs.

Is your community looking to attract and retain innovative entrepreneurs? How can a strong community brand leverage your city’s strengths to help tear down business barriers that turn off Gen X and Gen Y?

Downtown Branding: New Orleans, LA Case Study

Everyone is looking for an authentic place to put down roots. The problem with authenticity is that it's often established. That makes it hard for people - even really cool creative people - to transform it or make it their own. But what if you really could have it all . . . a place with an internationally renowned, authentic and inspiring framework that is also a clean slate? A place completely unique but whose future is entirely open to interpretation?

Consider the case of Downtown New Orleans. Ravaged by hurricane Katrina more than five years ago, the city suffered an exodus. Fast forward a few years. After a lot of hard work, the Downtown is open for business and ready for prosperity. What Katrina destroyed is being replaced with some of the world's best facilities.

The New Orleans Downtown Development District (DDD) partnered with North Star to discover and develop a brand that attracts Industries of the Mind . . . innovative people who are turned on by the city who can turn the city back on. The challenge: Shift the national conversation about New Orleans from Mardi Gras and recovery to progress, innovation, opportunity and success.

Research found that New Orleans has many of the assets that inspire the creative class. In addition, the city has become a productive, prolific laboratory for ideas and reform across many sectors, public and private. Headlines have been earned with advances in education practices, improved housing and even alternative energy. But that story is not coordinated or frequent enough. Research regularly revealed a deficit in marketing and promotion.

"New Orleans provides an environment of freedom and collaboration where people can design their own preferred future and lifestyle while contributing to the renaissance and rebirth of one of the world's most authentic cities," says Don McEachern, CEO of North Star. "The relationship this city has with her creative class is so passionate, mysterious and fiery; she literally is a Modern Muse for Industries of the Mind. New Orleans may not be for everyone, but when the chemistry is right between this city and those she inspires . . . well, anything is possible."

North Star recommended targeting Industries of the Mind with a strategy that positions Downtown New Orleans as a collage of distinct communities and opportunities whose absolute cultural authenticity makes it a muse (source of intelligence and inspiration for creativity) that fires the imagination and energizes you to shape a prosperous future - yours and the city.

Creativity focused on the idea of the city being both a muse and a blank canvas, inviting innovators to "raise your own bar." Complementary logos were developed for the DDD and Downtown New Orleans using a fresh, modern color palette that does not rely on stereotypical New Orleans' colors. Ads feature New Orleans entrepreneurs positioned in front of larger-than-life canvases that speak their mind about the city.

Downtown New Orleans commissioned a strategic plan from North Star with a major focus on recruiting, connecting, attraction, retention, peer-to-peer communications, marketing and mobile messaging. A couple of ideas:

• Welcome potential entrepreneurial transplants with a One Way Ticket program during Entrepreneurs Week. Send one way tickets to 100 entrepreneurs. Photograph and interview entrepreneurs as they arrive in front of a blank canvas, asking about their aspirations for the week.
  
  

• Increase awareness through a series of ads featuring a job listing skinned by clever copy highlighting living and working in Downtown New Orleans.
  
  

• Offer unique branded premium items that leave a big impression.
  

• Launch a three-part "Canvas Campaign" designed to spur Industries of the Mind interest and involvement:
  
  Weeks 1-2: Place large blank canvases in high-profile areas throughout downtown.
  
  Weeks 2-4: Convert canvases to oversized QR codes in brand colors. When participants scan the QR code, they will be asked to text their thoughts on living and working in New Orleans.
  
  Weeks 4-6: From the responses that you receive, choose several messages with clear impact and paint those phrases on the canvases.
  

Destination Branding: State of Mississippi Case Study

Stereotypes can be hard to overcome. So when working to put your best foot forward, should you distance yourself from the context of a negative stereotype or work to redefine that context in people's minds?

Consider the case of the state of Mississippi. Southern history - with all its highs and lows - is prone to negative stereotypes. Mississippi was grappling with the challenges her strong southern narrative played in the national psyche, which at times makes the state shorthand for those negative stereotypes.

North Star Destination Strategies partnered with the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) Tourism Division to determine and define the state's identity in the tourism marketplace.

According to North Star President & CEO, Don McEachern, walking away from southern culture was not an option. "All our research showed that people are fascinated by the south and that visitors and prospective visitors view Mississippi's influence on southern culture as her greatest asset. In fact, even though Mississippi is not geographically the most southern state, it was overwhelmingly identified by consumers as being the most southern culturally. Even travel writers define the state as the heart of the Deep South."

"Mississippi has played a critical role in the evolution of almost every type of important southern culture including literature, innovation, technology, hospitality, cooking, music, football, charm, gaming and work ethic. Collectively, she offers a broad, textured and varied southern experience. Quite simply, to remove Mississippi from the southern framework is to reduce her and miss the point entirely," he concluded.

North Star recommended a strategy that establishes Mississippi as the mother of southern culture . . . yesterday, today and tomorrow. Playing off the idea that Mississippi is "a place in the imagination" (Bill Ferris, American author and scholar), North Star's creative direction focused on the personal journey that people take in their search for the "true south" in Mississippi. Because each individual's definition of the true south is their own, this campaign is very intimate, personal and flexible. It has appeal for people of all races, cultures, income levels and backgrounds. And it allows Mississippi to own all that is rich and authentic about the south including the state's historic struggles.

The line, "Find Your True South" is coupled with a mark featuring a classically designed compass. The mark leverages the equity in the existing stylized type treatment of Mississippi that accompanies the official state logo. Together the logo and line emphasize and support the idea of each visitor's search for the south that speaks to them. The south that feels true. Brand narrative is intimate and emotional, defining varied Mississippi experiences from the viewpoint of different visitors . . . but retaining the historical context that gives the state its greater meaning. The MDA partnered with Frontier Strategies, LLC to develop the final logo and advertisements.

"Stakeholder appreciation for and alignment behind the brand has been remarkable," notes Mary Beth Wilkerson, Director of Tourism, MDA. "It has actually been described as 'spiritually cathartic'. We are excited about putting it to work in the marketplace."

Strategic action ideas further integration of the brand into the psyche and sightlines of the state. A sampling of the ideas North Star recommended are below. For additional ideas check out the full case study.

• Ask top restaurants in Mississippi to create True South Dinner Kits, allowing visitors to replicate incredible southern dining experiences at home. Dinner kit ideas could include caramel cake, biscuits, fried chicken, gravy, cornbread or mud pie.
  
  
  
• Develop a list of cultural trails representative of Mississippi's True South - including music, food, literature, art and dance. Develop a mobile app that not only gives visitors directions to various events, attractions and assets along the trails but also gives interesting facts and history about what the visitor will be seeing along the way.
  
  
  
• Ensure the presence of the brand identity at major events statewide with a mobile "Find Your True South" Center. Use a branded, luxury bus as the mobile center.
  
  
  
• Celebrate Mississippi's Bicentennial in 2017 with a statewide "Homecoming of the South". Partner with the state's matriarchs (literal and figurative) to invite all Mississippi children home to their true south.